


The Dragon's Heart

by taiyakisoba



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:18:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taiyakisoba/pseuds/taiyakisoba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the youngest son of the human ambassador to the dragonewt nation is summoned to its capitol, he has little idea that marriage to his childhood bully awaits him. But maybe being the husband of the daughter of the Suzerain is not as terrible a prospect as it first seems...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dragon's Heart

When the I heard the cry of the lookout I raced out onto the deck. There it was! The great mountain capitol of the dragonewts. I had to force my way to the edge of the railing through a mixture of merchants, officials and even aeronauts, for though the crew of the airship had made this same journey many times before, I'd been told the sight was so astounding that familiarity did not lessen its impact.

It was an understatement. Across the wide sea of cloud, boiling white and lit salmon- gold by the morning sun, a great dark pinnacle had appeared. This was the Dragon's Tooth, and the thin wisp of smoke that rose from its summit to stain the sky was a warning that it was no mere mountain but a volcano. 

“Look,” said a boy beside me, dressed in the uniform of an aeronaut yeoman. His finger sought out a part of the mountain as it grew closer. “There, on the right!”

I and the others beside me sought out the target of his pointing. On the side of the mountain, as though growing from its dark stone, was the castle of the dragonewts. Huge curved ramparts cut in tiers from the cliff and towers constructed from the remnants of the stone speared up into the sky, topped with red-and-gold pennants. Lights burned throughout the myriad of windows like stars scattered across a night sky. Yet despite the viciousness of the castle's aspect, it was beautiful, a brutal beauty like that of the dragonewts themselves. 

“I had no idea it would be so huge,” I muttered. The boy laughed and was about to say something else to me when orders were barked and he scrambled away with his fellow aeronauts across the deck to their stations.

“Frightening, isn't it,” said the merchant on my other side. The only ones left now were the passengers of the ship. 

I shrugged. “Beautiful, too, though.”

The merchant snorted. “Be careful of that eye for beauty, lad. The dragonewts are not to be trifled with. We all have to hope it doesn't come to war”

I listened politely. I'd heard a lot of such talk recently. Tensions had risen between our nation and that of the dragonewts over a territory dispute, but it had not yet come to blows. It would not, I knew. For decades dragonewts and humans had engaged in a game of pushing and posturing. This current disagreement over the southern islands was no different. 

But then, my father was ambassador to the dragonewts, and so I was privy to more accurate inside information. He didn't often speak about such things on the few weeks of relaxation he received when he joined my mother and my brothers at home to celebrate one of our seemingly endless series of religious festivals, but the hints were enough. 

The merchant continued his spiel. I only half-listened, nodding politely and making the odd conciliatory murmur at some of his more outlandish statements: the dragonewts were on the point of declaring war, the ambassadors were about to be recalled, there was a fleet of their airships hidden somewhere in the southern islands poised to strike our cities on the south coast if we didn't back down….

“Fishing rights,” the merchant snorted. “All over fishing rights. Of course the scalies reckon they have a religious right to the southern ocean, even though our interests have long been established...”

I stopped listening and frowned. His use of the common slur 'scalies' irritated me. Such ugly xenophobia was becoming more and more common, but luckily I heard little of it where my family lived. 

I didn't want to hear any more. I muttered my apologies and went below decks. We would be mooring in a short while and I had to get my luggage in order. 

My heart raced. I'd been in a state of excitement since my father had sent word for me to join him here in Dragon's Tooth. I'd never visited the land of the dragonewts, although I knew much about it. As the youngest son of the family and far from the favourite, I wasn't in the running to take over my father's position so this trip was for pleasure rather than business. My father had asked me to pack my best clothes since my stay here was to be an extended one. 

I was happy for the distraction. Life back in Varvasena, despite its myriad of pleasures, had become boring. It was a cosmopolitan city, it was true, of tabernas and cafes and sun-drenched porticoes, but I had little to do there. As the youngest, I was the leftover. Already one of my brothers had joined the army, another the church, and of course the eldest would inherit my father's position, since it was a hereditary one. I found myself thinking back more and more to my schooling. Those had been difficult times for me, but they'd had the benefit at least of having been exciting.

The school had been an international one in the free city of Lampeti. As neutral ground, many ambassadors sent their children there for their education. My brothers hadn't remained there long, since they had were careers waiting for them back home, and with them gone I'd had to fend for myself, which I had without incident - until she came.

I still burned with shame at the thought that it was a girl who had bullied me. Well, perhaps girl misrepresented the situation. She was a female dragonewt, her name Lanissa. That pretty name and - damn it to hell! - her infuriating beauty, intelligence and confidence had all helped to hide a black heart. 

I don't know why she singled me out for special attention. I was the only one she would trip with her tail, the only one she would tease unmercifully with her sharp tongue, the only one she'd grab from behind and lift high into the air while she laughed at my wildly kicking feet.

I hated heights. I always had. I usually stayed below decks when airships took off, fearing the sight of the earth receding. In flight I had little problem so long as the ship remained high enough that the clouds became a second ground. But Lanissa, once she had discovered my weakness, had never given me a moment's peace. 

I wondered where she was now. Did she live in the capitol? I recalled that her father had been a government official, a rather high-up one. She'd always had the best clothes and all that a child might desire. Of course, I myself had been no pauper, but…

The ship shuddered, the shouting and footfalls of the crew loud through the wood of the deck as they moored the ship. 

We'd arrived.

\--------------------------------------

As I jockeyed for a place on the deck, juggling my luggage and jostling with the other passengers to cross the gangplank, a consternation arose on the dock. I couldn't see anything due to the crush, but I heard the clatter of armour mixed with exclamations and protests. 

Crested helms and the tips of tridents bobbed over the heads of the crowd. Dragonewt soldiers, boarding the ship. 

The people before me were pushed aside and a soldier appeared. Like all dragonewts, he was tall, almost seven foot. He was clad in red armour, richly embossed in gold, from the top of his crest to the tip of his tail. His helm, faceless but for the golden slit-pupilled eyes behind it, swivelled as he scanned the crowd. 

His eyes settled at last on me. He stepped forward, took hold of my arm and threw open his visor. He scanned my face carefully, then grunted.

“This is the ambassador's son,” he said. 

Other soldiers appeared and cleared a path through the crowd to the gangplank. The one holding my arm looked down at me.

“Come with me,” he said. 

What choice did I have? With the soldier still gripping my arm, I struggled to lug my suitcase one-handed, but he grew irritated by the delay and with the click of clawed fingers had another soldier relieve me of my burden. This second individual grinned down at me with a mouth full of needle-sharp canines as he lifted the suitcase effortlessly with his muscular tail. 

The crowd watched, hushed, as I was led off the airship. 

I swallowed. So the merchant had been right. It was war.

\----------------------------

“It's not war,” said my father. We were sitting in his drawing room, having tea served to us by his human maid. The cushions at my back and a hot cup of tea in my hand were all the more welcome given the fact that I'd expected the soldiers to lead me straight to either prison or execution. 

Instead they'd brought me to my father's domicile. It was a dragonewt home, huge rooms carved out of the living rock, but furnished in human opulence, tapestries and dividers making the space more pleasing to the human eye. Walls of dragonewt homes are traditionally decorated with relief carvings documenting the deeds of famous ancestors, but here the gory details were chastely covered by patterned blinds. 

“But I'd heard that-” 

“It's not war yet,” my father interrupted. “But we are most definitely on the cusp of it.”

“The southern islands?” 

He nodded. “Among other things. Our air-force is on high alert, ready for the inevitable attack.”

I slumped back in my seat. “So war is inevitable?”

My father made no reply. His eyes considered me over the tea cup as he took a deep draught. My father always drank tea like that, in a single or at most two draughts, no matter how hot it was. He hated laziness, hated delays. No wonder I was at the bottom of the list of his favourite sons.

“No,” he said. “It's not inevitable. Although the whole dragonewt government is clamouring for war, and many of our own people, idiots every one of them, are doing the same, the decision to declare war falls to one individual and one individual only – the Suzerain “

The Suzerain was the leader of the dragonewt nation. 

“So what are the Suzerain's feelings?” I asked. 

“Despite the clamouring of the senate, he does not want war.” He waved away the maid's proffered refill of his cup. “The current Suzerain is a reasonable man. Lucky that tensions should finally broil over while he held the sceptre.” He leaned forward. “He's an old friend of mine, as well. You've met him.”

“The Suzerain?” I put my cup down. “When?”

“When you were still at school,” my father said. “Do you remember the play?”

I groaned. The play? How could I forget it? I'd made a fool of myself in front of everyone, students and teachers and parents alike. 

Yes, the play. When I was voted the lead male part of the hero I thought that I was finally shaking off my unpopularity. But when I discovered that Lanissa was playing the heroine, I knew what had happened. She'd had the other students vote me in as a joke. 

But I couldn't just quit. I was too proud for that. If Lanissa was trying to humiliate me that way, I wasn't going to let her. The rehearsals themselves were not that bad. I had reams of lines to learn, but Lanissa for whatever reason played along and refrained from her usual pranks. I had no idea at the time that she was just lulling me into a false sense of security.

Even the night of the play everything seemed to be going well. The play was an old story, the usual star-crossed lovers thing, set during the civil war. The heroine was of course supposed to be human, but being a mixed school many of the human parts were being played by non-humans. 

There was no denying the fact – that night Lanissa looked beautiful. It was the first time I'd ever seen her in a dress – she'd refused to wear one for the full dress rehearsals – but there was something about her as we waited behind the stage. She was nervous. I'd never seen her nervous before. The strange fragility had stripped her face of its usual fierceness and the wings furled at her back shivered.

She grabbed my arm. “I have to ask you something,” she said. She began to lead me outside but I shrugged myself free.

“Let's just get this over and done with, okay?”

Her face took a strange cast, but then it shifted to an expression I knew all too well: irritation. She stormed off. 

During the entire play she kept missing her cues and improvising, but somehow she pulled everything together enough that the audience didn't once suspect there was anything wrong. The rest of us, though, had to fall over ourselves to keep the play moving in the right direction. 

The final scene came. As the hero, I was to defend her honour against the villain, my wicked half-brother. As I drew her aside and stepped forward her tail slipped from her dress and I stumbled over it. My sword went spinning across the stage. 

I stood there, frozen in panic. Lanissa looked to me, challenge in her eyes. What did she expect me to do? It was her fault! The crowd began to murmur and with a sigh of exasperation she strode forward and snatched up the sword herself. She grabbed my arm and pulled me behind her and challenged the villain, who had been standing there the whole time watching the debacle unfold with horror on his face. Rescued, he threw himself back into his role and fought Lanissa while I was forced to play the role of the maiden whose honour had been besmirched.

Lanissa knocked the sword from my half-brother's hand and forced him to yield. Then, her hand around my waist, she drew me tight against her.

Those dark-slitted golden eyes stared into my own and I froze. She arched a single pretty eyebrow.

“Kiss me,” she hissed.

“What?”

“This is the part where you kiss me!”

“Kiss you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, never mind. I'll do it.”

Then without delay she leaned over and dipped me at the waist, kissing me on the lips to thunderous applause. 

As soon as the curtain had fallen, I breathlessly pushed her away. 

“What the hell were you trying to do?” I snapped at her.

Lanissa's eyes flashed and her crest bristled. “Save the play, of course. When you tripped over...”

“You tripped me over with that stupid tail of yours!”

Her mouth fell open in shock and her second eyelids slipped over her pupils, which always happened when she grew angry. “Stupid? You're the one who…!”

“I hate you!”

I pushed past her and ran from the theatre. Lanissa came after me, calling my name, but I made sure she didn't catch up with me.

Afterwards, the play was applauded for its progressive re-imagining of the old story and Lanissa was praised by everyone. Things always ended up like that. Everyone always thought the best of her, no matter what she did.

After the disaster of the play I avoided her. Luckily, she left school soon afterwards. Her father, then ambassador to Lampeti, was promoted and recalled to the capitol. I never saw Lanissa again. But I still often thought of her. You didn't easily forget a humiliation like that.

“Yes,” I said at last to my father's question. “I remember the play. So the Suzerain was there? The only dragonewt I remember in the audience was Lanissa's dad.”

My father nodded. “Yes, that's him.”

A dark pit opened in my stomach and I scanned my father's face for any trace of a joke. It was a desperate ploy. My father seldom joked. “But he wasn't the….”

My father snorted at my confusion. “Of course he wasn't the Suzerain back then. Have you forgotten all the lessons I gave you about dragonewt culture? How the Suzerain is determined by single combat?”

No, I hadn't forgotten. “So that means Lanissa is daughter of the Suzerain,” I murmured. “Good for her.” Like I said, everything always seemed to turn out well for Lanissa.

My father smiled. “I'm glad you remember her. You two were good friends, as I recall.”

“Well,” I said. “I wouldn't exactly say…”

My father ignored me. He brushed aside the teacup before him and reached over the table to take my hand.

I stared at his hand, horrified, wondering whether I'd said something wrong and my father was going to pull me across the table and thump me. He didn't, which was actually far more disturbing. My father never showed affection like this.

“Son, I'm sorry I called you out here without telling you what this was all about. But I couldn't risk you refusing to come if you found out.”

If I found out? Something was wrong. I felt the pit in my stomach widen and fill with ice.

“I have a request to make of you,” my father continued. “But first you have to promise me to hear me out, to actually think over it before you refuse.”

“What is is?” I asked.

My father sat back and steepled his fingers. He often did that when he was nervous. “Like I said earlier, the Suzerain and I are good friends. And I am respected by the dragonewts, as much as any human is. They may distrust our government, but after living here with them for a decade they have come to trust me. And so the Suzerain and I have come up with a way to avert the war. The plan involves you.”

“Me?” I cried. “But you know I'm no soldier. I have no idea about military matters or–”

My father laughed.”Fortunately for you, the plan has nothing to do with fighting. We're trying to avert a war, remember, not start one.”

“But I'm not much good at anything else, either,” I protested.

“That may be true or it may not,” said my father. “But you have one thing to commend you: you're single.”

“Single?” I repeated. “But I don't know how that...”

Oh. Oh no. No, god.

My voice fell to a horrified whisper. “You're not seriously suggesting...?”

My father nodded. “The Suzerain has a number of daughters, and luckily one is still unmarried, and luckier still–”

I stopped listening. There was no need. When it came to matters of luck, both her good and my own lousy luck, I knew there was only one name my father was going to say.

Lanissa.

I said nothing for a long while. Then I shook my head.

“Impossible,” I said. 

“Why?”

“Father, you've forgotten what she was like in school. She was a horrible bully. She made my life a misery.”

My father's brow furrowed. “Really? You never said anything about it.”

“I told you multiple times,” I replied. I had, but my father had always been more focussed on matters of state than on the state of his own son.

“Surely that's all in the past,” he said. “It's been more than ten years. From all reports she's become a delightful young female.”

I laughed, then. “Now I know that that's got to be impossible,” I said. “And I also know something of dragonewt culture. They marry in their late teens, right? Lanissa is my age. So she never got married, and I know why.”

My father sat back. “You disappoint me, son.”

“I know,” I said. “I always have.”

“Son, do you remember the trip we took to Smila?”

I nodded. Smila was our southernmost city. On the southern coast, it lay beside the beautiful middle ocean. It was famous for its long beaches of pure white sand, its sunny plazas and shaded, wisteria-draped colonnades. 

“As we speak, our air-force lies hidden in the mountains of the hinterland. We have intelligence that Smila is the point where the dragonewts will invade from.”

“Invasion?” I whispered.

“We have no chance of saving Smila. But we have to make a show of resistance, or else our people will become demoralised.”

“So all the people there...”

My father's face was grim. “Too many to evacuate, and anyway, as soon as we started, we'd be alerting the dragonewts to the fact that we're privy to their military communications. They'd strike immediately. We've calculated our potential losses, best case scenario, at ten to fifteen thousand.”

I closed my eyes. Those beautiful plazas bombed to ashes, the gorgeous beaches soaked in blood. The horror of the vision sickened me. 

And yet, I felt another sickness, deeper down, a nauseous panic. 

I knew what it was. It was the realisation that I was going to say 'Yes'.

\--------------------------------

My father was of course pleased with my decision. He clapped me on the back and grinned and made a lewd joke that I refuse to put down on paper. 

I'd assumed that after agreeing to the marriage they'd take me straight away to see Lanissa, but it turned out I didn't really know as much about dragonewt culture as I thought I did. 

“The bride and groom may not see each other until the wedding itself,” my stylist explained to me. She was an older dragonewt and rather short, around six foot. Like all stylists, she was a walking advertisement for her skills, wearing elaborate make-up – dragonewt females favour different types of mineral foundations that give their skin and scales a glittering quality. Her large eyes were all the more striking for the black kohl around them, shining like gemstones, and she wore her dark hair long, in ringlets.

“What, really?” I heard a strange tone in my voice, and I was surprised to recognise it as disappointment.

This pleased the stylist. “Oh, you have the rest of your lives to look at each other, after all. It's inauspicious to tempt fate by seeing each other before the sacrifices have been made and the venue subjugated.” 

Subjugated. Even though dragonewts spoke Common as well as their own language, it was peppered with phrases such as this, direct translations from the dragonewt language, as I understood. My father was fluent but I'd never mastered more than a few words. The language demanded a level of control over the throat I just couldn't seem to attain.

I looked at myself in the mirror. She'd done a good job. I'd been worried, at first, that I would end up with some dragonewt style - I'd never suited braids or any of the other ways dragonewt males fashion their hair. But the stylist knew all about human styles and after a few looks at my profile and my portrait she'd quickly made up her mind. 

She turned the chair I was sitting on and let me look at myself from different angles. 

“I really like it,” I said.

The stylist smiled, showing row on row of needle-sharp teeth. The effect was alarming on such an otherwise auntie-like face.

“You look very handsome indeed,” she said, placing a taloned hand on my shoulder. “Why, I'd marry you myself. But then you would have to fight my husband to the death, which might prove a bit of a problem. He has a bad leg, though, so you would have a chance of beating him.” 

Dragonewt humour? I could never tell and my smile was awkward. She helped me out of the chair, which was difficult to do considering the complicated array of armour I was wearing. Another unexpected element of dragonewt culture. There had been some frenzied searching for armour that would fit my rather-average human frame and a lot of muttering about not having time to do a proper job with a custom piece of armour, until one of her assistants had found just the thing: a suit of armour so perfect it might have been made for me.

I admired myself in the mirror. The armour made even my harmless self look dangerous and I was proud of the fact until I discovered it was a child's armour I was wearing. 

“My son's,” explained the assistant. “He was a very big boy.”

I sighed. Well, it didn't matter. Luckily, I wouldn't have to wear this for long. dragonewt weddings were short affairs. 

The armour was still being polished with me in it when my father came in. He stopped and gave a low chuckle. 

“Does it really look that bad?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “You look good. I'm just laughing at the whole situation. Funny that the survival of our country should come down to this.” He sat down in the chair before the mirror and swivelled to look at me. His leg, his old war injury, was obviously giving him grief. 

I frowned. “Father, I want to do the right thing, but...”

He shook his head. “Look, I know we've had our ups and downs over the years, son, but I need you to know something.” He sighed and looked away from me, his eyes scanning the engraved stone of the wall. “I'm… I'm really proud of you.”

I stared at him. Hearing my father praise me was not something I'd been ready for. 

“I wish your mother was alive to see this,” he continued. “She'd be so happy. We often used to talk about which of you would marry first.”

“I don't think she expected it to be me, or that I'd marry a dragonewt,” I said. 

“You're doing a good thing,” my father said. “That's all she would've cared about.” He stood back up. “I have a few more things to discuss with the Suzerain and his people, so I suppose the next time I'll see you is at the wedding.” He tapped my now-armoured shoulder and left. 

“There,” said the stylist, giving my cuirass a final buff. “Perfect.” Again that toothy grin. “The daughter of the Suzerain will have a fun time peeling you out of that.”

“Peeling?” 

She laughed. “Oh, did I say something silly? Forgive me. My Common is a bit rusty.” 

And yet somehow I didn't think her Common was as rusty as she made out.

\-----------------------------

I glanced over the cards which held my vows. I was still having trouble memorising them. My father stood nearby, dressed in his suit. He always seemed comfortable in whatever place or situation fate found him. Well, he wasn't the one getting married, so I guess he could afford to be relaxed. 

The taboo about seeing the bride did not extend to the bride's family and I spent a few awkward moments upon my arrival at the temple talking to Lanissa's mother and father, me in stuttering dragonewt and them in heavily-accented common. The Suzerain and his wife, although they were generally terrifying with their spines and teeth and wide, predatory eyes, were little different from the parents of human girlfriends I'd been forced to meet. The Suzerain, despite his size, was affable, and he slapped me on the back almost as soon as he met me. 

“This is the boy,” said the Suzerain. “I was telling you about him, dear. Did I not say he was a fine example of a human?”

Lanissa's mother looked me over. “Is he not a little small?”

“Hah,” said the Suzerain. “Do not let that fool you. The smaller the dog the sharper the bite, so they say.”

She sniffed. “No one says that.”

The Suzerain chuckled. “They do, they do. It is a saying we borrowed from our human friends.” He turned his slitted eyes to me. “Is that not right, son?”

Son. The word had a dreadful finality to it. 

“Uh,” I said.

“Damn right,” said the Suzerain. “But observe me, babbling like an idiot.” He took my elbow and indicted a group of dragonewts in one corner of the temple grounds. “See them? The Council. No doubt they have been looking this way the whole time. No doubt they will characterise our conversation as some sort of conspiracy. Well, we will show them, will we not?”

“Uh,” I said.

The Suzerain's wife went to talk with my father and so the Suzerain grabbed the opportunity to take me aside. He leaned closer, very much in the conspiratorial fashion he'd mentioned just a few moments before. “Look, son, between you and me. About Lanissa?”

I stared at him. His face was deadly serious.

“She takes after her mother. Treat her with respect and she will be an excellent mate. But do not let her get her own way over everything. She will just end up bullying you.” He sighed. “I wish I had had someone like me to give me this advice.”

“Well,” I said. “Lanissa and I...”

The Suzerain nodded.“Yes, yes, of course. You have a history. She used to talk about you all the time, you know. And that play!” He laughed. “People still talk about it.”

“Oh good,” I said. 

 

His serious face returned. “Son, you have got to make this work, you know. I am sorry to thrust everything on your shoulders, but we had little choice. Your father explained to you about how seriousness is this situation?”

I nodded.

“We do not want war, but there are many dragonewts who do. But you know what people like better than war?” He tapped my cuirass with a talon. “A wedding. If you are successful, the Council will have no popular support for their insanity. There was some rough negotiation necessary, though,” he continued. “A few arms needed to be twisted off.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Another human saying. But it's just 'twisted', not 'twisted off'.”

He blinked at me. “A human saying?”

The music started. His wife reappeared and whisked him away, but not before he winked at me. My father took his place at my side.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But I'm never going to be ready. Let's get this over with.”

My father laughed. “Oh, come now. It's a wedding, not an execution.”

That remained to be seen. 

\-------------------

The wedding was a mix of both traditions. There was a wedding march, but also the dragonewt crossing of the swords, where I walked the gauntlet alongside my father of weapons clashing all around us and filling the air with flying sparks. We would come to no harm, I'd been assured, since barely a handful of grooms had been decapitated in the history of the ritual.

The blades came pretty close, though. I wondered how they'd chosen the swordsmen, whether there had been time for a vetting process to weed out potential sympathisers of the war-party. My heart raced, but nowhere near as fast as it did when the sanctuary of the temple came into sight. The dragonnnewt priestess with her elaborate beaded headdress was waiting for us. I glanced about for the bride. She was nowhere to be seen.

Conflicting emptions surged in my chest. Relief that the wedding wouldn't have to go forward, humiliation at the thought that she'd decided to stand me up, despair at the thought of the war that would probably soon erupt. 

But as soon as I reached the bottom of the short set of steps she came out of the wings. Led by two small boys, one a dragonewt and the other a human, she was dressed in a long white wedding dress in the human style. She was totally veiled, which was why she was being led by the boys. 

My god. Had she always been that tall? Her dark hair was visible behind the veil, intricately braided, while her wings and tail stuck out of the dress via customisations not unlike the ones in that first dress I'd seen her wear so many years ago.

My father dropped my hand and I ascended the steps alone. I faced her before the priestess. The boys helped her turn and then vanished back into the wings.

The priestess spoke in both dragonewt and Common, for the benefit of the few humans that were there, mostly just attaches and assistants of my father and their families. It was good to have some human faces in the audience, though, among all the toothy grins.

The time came for the exchanging of the vows. I managed to utter all of mine without tripping up on any of the pronunciation, although my tongue ached at the end of it. Lanissa's voice, the first time I had heard it for ten years, came through the veil in response. She spoke the Common with confidence and without any trace of the accent she'd had at school. 

“Your enemies have become my enemies,” she said. “As mine have become yours. And whenever your arm tires with the effort of your blows, I will be there to support you and to strike in your place...”

Such romantics, the dragonewts. And yet I enjoyed listening to her voice. It was lower than the one I remembered and the words slipped sweetly off her lips. I wondered at the face hiding behind the veil. 

“...and so now I offer you my blood, as proof of my words.”

That was my cue. “And I offer you my blood, as proof of my heart.”

As proof of my heart. Well, they were just words, right? 

I raised my hand palm up and so did the veiled Lanissa. I stared at it. Long and slender, with the sharp claws filed down as was the style with female draggonewts. Her scales were pale blue gold, iridescent in the subdued light. I'd forgotten that about her. She'd had a most beautiful colour to her scales. 

I stared at the veil. Now that she'd ceased speaking, the veil had returned to being a white barrier between us. I knew she couldn't see anything behind it, but so too was she shielded from me. I was still staring when the priestess took our hands and cut them across the palm with her dagger and joined them together.

This was the end of the dragonewt wedding. But one last part of the human rite remained to be performed. 

“You may now kiss the bride!”

I raised my hand which had been quickly bandaged by the priestess. A small patch of blue and red, our mingled blood, was soaking through the material as I took hold of the hem of the veil. My hand trembled. I hoped they would think it was from the pain.

I lifted the veil from my bride's face while trying not to be too obviously on tippy-toes. She'd always been taller, but sometime over the past decade she'd really taken off on me.

What had I expected? I think I must have expected to see a grown-up version of the Lanissa I had known, the pretty girl with the oval face and babyish features and her ever-present frown. The face I drew the veil away from hinted at that little girl – her eyes were still large, a deep, speckled gold, her nose small – but it was a woman who looked back at me. Lanissa's face had matured from youthful cuteness into remarkable beauty. This was no trick of make-up, which had been sparingly applied to her in the human fashion rather than the dragonewt one. 

The fact could not be avoided. She was beautiful.

And yet she still wore the same frown I remembered.

My heart sank. A frown. Was she disappointed? After all, it was the first time she'd seen me in ten years. Her veil had hidden me from her as well.

But as I looked, her tinted lips shifted from down-turned tension into a smile I knew well. I'd seen it many times on her face, the gently mocking smile so sure of its own superiority. 

The priestess said something, but I didn't hear her. I was lost in a reverie. 

Lanissa raised a single, gorgeous eyebrow. I kept staring at her. Then she sighed and taking hold of my waist she pressed her pursed lips against mine. 

Her lips were sweet, her breath fragrant. All of her smelled good, actually. How was it that she smelled so good? My arms felt suddenly awkward, hanging at my side, and so I placed my hands on her waist. But I was too dazed to kiss back properly. 

No one noticed. There was a roar of applause, the sharp clashing of clawed feet on the floor.

Lanissa broke the kiss. 

“Just like the play,” she murmured. 

That god-damned play. 

Lanissa held out her hand. I took it and together we raised our hands into air. Then the ritual finally came to an end and to further applause, both human and dragonewt, we walked down the aisle to our waiting guests as husband and wife.

\-----------------------------------------

The reception was short and sweet. dragonewts did not usually keep the newly-weds from each other for long. A drink was thrust into my hand and I was slapped on the back by a crowd of people I didn't know. I must have heard the same lewd joke – about being careful not to get my back broken on my wedding night – about a dozen times. I was also offered a stream of advice on how to be a good husband, from how I should be careful never to argue with her where there were weapons close at hand, to how long we should wait until we tried for our first clutch.

Clutch. As in clutch of eggs. Humans and dragonewts were technically able to have children together, but because of the state of the relationship between our nations, there hadn't been a human-dragonewt couple in the public eye for a very long time.

I was quickly overwhelmed with a tsunami of emotions. I guess I hadn't really thought the whole thing through properly. I looked for Lanissa, for my wife, in the crowd. We'd been separated early on. But there she was, embracing hands with an older female draggonnewt, probably a relation, nodding and smiling as she no doubt received as I had a barrage of marital advice. 

Lanissa glanced in my direction and caught sight of me. She gave me a pointy-toothed smiled and after a moment of confusion I smiled back. Then I was swept back into my own world as my father brought over a number of his staff, all of them armed with the same well-meaning advice and tired jokes.

\------------------------

Lanissa and I didn't get a chance to exchange more than a few smiles and exasperated looks and words until the reception was over. After final farewells to our family members, the last guests remaining, we were placed in the back of a horse-drawn cab. 

I helped Lanissa in, which proved a challenge give her wings and her tail. I was very careful of that tail. That tail, despite its slender, attractive length and the white ribbon tied at the tip, was a tail which had caused me a lot of grief in the past. 

She gave a gasp of delight as she sat down on the cushioned seat and I echoed it as I joined her. The seats were of the softest leather and the cabin was luxuriously outfitted in velvet and lacquered wood. 

The driver slapped his tail on the horse's rump and we started to move.

We sat in silence for a while. Lanissa turned and smiled at me and I smiled back. She found her voice first. 

“I'm sorry about the whole half-dragonewt wedding thing,” she said. “I told father I wanted a human-style wedding, but he was worried about how it would look to the public, like I was being conquered or something.” She sighed. “It's that damn council's fault, of course. I hope you didn't find it too tiresome. I wanted there to be dancing, but it was mother who said no to that. She's never been a huge fan of human traditions. Dragonewt dancing is all jumping up and down and clashing your weapons on your armour.” She leaned closer. “Remember how we used to learn dancing at school?”

“Uh,” I said, surprised at the barrage of words. During the reception we'd spoken barely a dozen words to each other and now we were alone together it was as though the floodgates had opened up.

I obviously didn't answer quickly enough for her, since she sighed and lay back. “Maybe it's best we skipped the dancing. I wouldn't have wanted you to tread on my tail.” She turned her head and considered me with her gold eyes. 

Was she in earnest or was she just teasing me? I suspected I could see humour dancing in those large eyes, but the cast of the rest of her face was enigmatic.

“Yeah,” I said. “I have a bad track record, don't I?”

I was trying to be funny, but I think it came out too heartfelt. Her eyes narrowed.

“I guess my tail was too big when I was a kid, too,” she murmured. 

I tried to remember whether having a long tail was a good or bad thing in dragonewt culture. 

“The ribbon is a cute touch,” I said. I had to be safe with that, surely.

My words pleased her. She sat forward and looked at me. “Thank you,” she said. “You know, I'm sorry about how I looked.”

“What do you mean?”

“My expression. When you lifted my veil. I saw your reaction. I guess I was frowning. I was just worried, you know. I mean, I hadn't seen you in ten years. People can change a lot, right?”

I shrugged. “So you were disappointed?”

She snorted. “Are you fishing for a compliment?”

I laughed. “I suppose I am.”

“You haven't changed a bit,” she said. “Except that you're maybe a little taller.” She drew closer to me. “I guess you're lucky I'm short for a dragonewt, otherwise we might clash.” She fell silent for a while, then she said, “Have I changed at all?”

“A bit,” I said. 

The enigmatic look on her face returned. “is that good or bad?”

That caught me. 

“Are you fishing for a compliment?” I turned back on her.

She laughed. “You know, I've missed this. In the ten years since I've seen you, I haven't met anyone worthy to test my wit on.”

Testing her wit on me. So that was what she called it. 

I made no reply. After a while she sat forward. Even with her sitting flush with me, she felt suddenly a thousand leagues away.

It was my turn to break the silence. “So, why did you…?”

But at the moment the carriage came to a halt and the driver leaped off the box and opened the door for us with a flourish.

I was left flapping my mouth like a moron, so I closed it and sat up. I got out and then offered Lanissa help in alighting. As I took her hand I saw again that smile, that smile which was almost a smirk. It brought back a lot of bad memories. 

Her slender hand in mine, that softness of her scales. Dragonewts look as though their bodies are clad in some kind of mail, not all over of course, just patches on their hands and wrists almost like gloves, and on the side of the face beneath the ear, extending down the neck and along the spine to the tip of their tails. They also had patches where their wings meet the body, and of course those clawed feet. Everywhere else the iridescence of their scales was muted and was more or less equivalent with human flesh. Since Lampeti was a coastal resort town and swimming was one of our school's strongest sports, I'd seen Lanissa in a swimsuit many times. Of course, back then, she hadn't filled it as nearly as nicely as she would now with her adult figure. Her childish body had picked up some serious curves which all dragonewt females tend to have, fulsome but comely, the powerful shapeliness of an athlete tending to voluptuousness.

And so maybe I understood why she smiled that way as I helped her out of the carriage. As a human, I was far weaker than her, and it was only by virtue of being male that I was obliged to perform these chivalrous actions. But I was glad she went along with them. It made the whole situation seem almost normal in a way.

But as I turned to look at our destination, I found myself staring at a sheer black cliff-face. 

“Wait a second,” I said to the driver. “Is this the right place?”

The driver nodded and grinned, clearly not understanding my question, then with a thump on the horse's rump he waved and drew the carriage away.

I looked at Lanissa. She was grinning, too.

“Mind letting me in on the joke?” I asked, smiling and trying to mask my annoyance.

Lanissa gestured upwards with the wrist of one unfurled wing. Far above I saw there were tiny windows in the rock face. 

“Our suite is up there,” she said. 

“But how do we….?”

Lanissa laughed, then. “You really do think like a human, don't you?”

“Well, I am a human,” I said, offended. 

“No one's perfect,” she said. “Usually the happy couple fly up hand in hand, but since you don't have any wings...”

“Oh no,” I said. But it was too late to protest. Lanissa scooped me up off my feet into her arms and with a few quick, powerful beats of her wings she was airborne. 

I started to struggle but thought better of it. The ground was quickly falling away, and if I did manage to extricated myself, I'd break my neck or at the very least a leg. Lanissa was holding me in what I guess they call a princess-carry, supporting my legs under the knees with one arm and my torso up to my armpit with the other, a position which forced me to cling to her with my arms around her neck. 

Lanissa chuckled, delighted by the awkwardness of my situation. Even though it lacked dignity, being carried like this was comfortable. But the sight of the ground beetling away from us made my stomach rebel and my heart smash against my ribs, so I pulled my gaze away to look at Lanissa herself. 

“Sorry,” she said, her smile telling me she wasn't really sorry at all. 

“Uh,” I said.

Her eyes sparkled. “Don't tell me you're still scared of heights?”

I nodded.

She sighed. “And after all I did to try and get you used to heights.” She brought her face closer to mine. “I always wanted to take you flying with me, you know. I mean, you were small enough to carry about and I had these grand plans of skipping school and flying you to the islands across the bay. But you always squirmed so hard I was worried I'd drop you, so I never took you very far.”

I was about to tell her that that was not how I remembered it, but I thought better of it. Of course she wanted me to say that. That way I'd be admitting that her bullying had got to me, that I still thought about it.

Instead, I said nothing. I didn't need to, as we'd reached the suite. Lanissa came in for what was happily a gentle landing on the narrow shelf of rock that held the door to our quarters, not dissimilar to a balcony, but lacking any kind of guardrail. Of course, for a species with wings, guardrails would have been a pointless addition.

I slid out of her embrace but kept holding onto her. Without a guardrail, I was two steps from plummeting hundreds of feet below to an explosive death. 

Lanissa looked down at me. “What's the matter? Do you want to lift me up and carry me across the threshold? That's the human way, isn't it?”

Again that sparkle in her gold eyes. I let go of her and stepped across the threshold myself without waiting for her. She followed behind.

The plain and foreboding exterior opened up into an opulent room carved from the rock. We walked immediately into the living space, lavishly decorated with wall hangings and couches. There was even an armchair, an alien piece of furniture for dragonewts whose tails make it impossible to sit on them. 

Lanissa clapped her hands in girlish excitement. “Oh, it's so beautiful!” She hurried into one of several rooms that organically led off from this central one and I heard her excited voice. “We have a hot spring back here and everything!”

I investigated another side-room. It was a sun room, I suppose you would call it, with wide windows open to the side of the mountain and looking out across a prairie of clouds. There was a flat slab of granite, large enough for two dragonewts to lie together side-by-side: a sunning rock for lounging on during long, sunny days. The sun now, however, was setting and lit the entire cloudy expanse beyond the window, making it a glowing sheet of copper. 

I stood, staring. I was still staring when Lanissa joined me. She stood beside me and drew in a breath.

“Beautiful,” she said. 

I turned to her. Her voice was so arrestingly gentle. I hadn't realised her capable of such a tone. 

She caught me looking and looked away. “There's another room this way,” she said, taking my hand. I let her lead me to the other end of the long sun-room, where she poked her head through a door I hadn't investigated yet. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

She made no reply, so I came up alongside her and looked myself. 

The room was lit with candlelight and if possible was even more luxurious than the living room. A huge bed dominated the space, a bed in the dragonewt style, circular and nest-like, with mounds of pillows and blankets. 

But I realised then what had dragged Lanissa's speech from her. The walls were decorated with hangings just like the rest of the suite, but here the subject was very different from the geometrical patterns of the living room. No, the figures that looked at us from the prints, male and female dragonewts in varying states of undress, were distinctly erotic. Various embraces were shown, but with a demure avoidance of graphic detail: entwined tails and erect wings hinted at what the strategically placed pillows and blankets hid.

I tried not to stare, but the level of artistry was excellent. I admit I was relieved, too, to see that barring a few interesting details, dragonewts have sex the same way humans do. At last I looked away, turning my gaze to Lanissa. She was still staring, her face flushed pink.

My heart skipped at the sight. She was actually blushing! I had no idea that dragonewts could blush, and I'd never expected to see the usually so self-assured girl so embarrassed.

I decided to play the part of the chivalrous husband and took her hand. “It's a bit early for sleep. Why don't we sit down and have a drink?” 

Lanissa nodded, but she glanced back at the prints as we left the room. I had her lay down on a couch while I went and located the pantry. It was just off the same corridor that led to the spa. I glanced inside before I peeled off for the pantry and whistled, understanding Lanissa's earlier cry of delight. It was a huge open space, far larger even than the living room, dominated by a grotto carved out of the rock and tiled. Mildly sulphurous water bubbled out of a natural spring in the wall, and steam rose up to a series of holes in the ceiling which ensured the rest of the suit was kept clear of the moisture and smell. Stalactites grew down, whimsical upside-down castles of limestone. The whole area was lit with multicoloured lanterns of phosphorescent minerals. 

I dragged myself away and quickly located the cold box of the pantry. It was filled with all sorts of food for the two of us. I saw some excellent cheeses and even fresh lobster from Smila. I picked one up and it moved sluggishly, making me drop it. But of course dragonewts like their food freshly killed, and they don't much care for cooking. 

I located some wine from the vineyards of Strefi, which I knew was sweet. Lanissa would probably enjoy it, given the sweet tooth she'd had when we were kids.

I located some glasses and went back out into the living room. Lanissa was lying on the couch. With her whole body splayed out and her tail at its full length, I was reminded of how tall she was. With her wide hips and not ungenerous bust, she was a living model of the term 'statuesque'. 

As soon as she saw me she smiled.

“I've got some wine,” I said. “I guessed you maybe like the sweet stuff, so I chose that.”

She laughed. “So you do remember something about me!”

I handed her the glass and served the wine. I took up my own glass.

Lanissa looked suddenly awkward. “I guess we should make a toast or something.”

“Another toast?” I laughed. “Okay. How about, 'To peace between our two nations'?”

The smile on her face was forced. “What a thoughtful toast,” she murmured. 

We clinked our glasses together and sipped the wine. It was excellent and as I sat down on the chair I felt warmth already flooding me. Lanissa watched me. I had no idea why the toast had annoyed her. Didn't she want peace between our nations? Well, I hadn't really asked her what her feelings where in this whole situation. Maybe she was just doing this to please her father and she didn't actually care either way.

“So,” I said, hating the silence. “It's been about ten years, hasn't it?”

“I think so,” she said. 

“I think the last time we saw each other was at graduation.”

“I think so,” she said. She took another sip of wine and put her glass down. “You know, I really wanted to talk to you that day but I wasn't able to catch you.”

“Uh,” I said. “It was a pretty mad day, wasn't it?” The truth was, I'd avoided her. After the play I didn't want anything more to do with her. Maybe I should have talked to her, got some closure between us. Maybe it was the reason I'd kept thinking about her since then. 

“Yes, it was,” she said. 

“The wine's good, isn't it?”

She said nothing but nodded and smiled.

Gods. I was dying here. The sheer drop just outside the suite had started to look like a reasonable escape plan. 

“I guess you must be hungry,” I said. “There was some food in the pantry. Maybe I should…?”

Lanissa sighed. “Allow me,” she said. 

She stood up and brushed off her dress, then disappeared down the corridor. I heard her squeal and then she came racing back into the living room holding the squirming lobster.

“Lobster!” she cried. Her eyes were eager. “Do you like it? Shall we eat it?”

Taken aback, I could only nod. 

With a delighted grin, she took hold of the lobster's head and with a quick wrench tore it clear off. The body gave a few more spastic jerks before its limbs curled up.

I stared in horror.

“Oh,” said Lanissa. “Sorry. Did you want the head?”

I shook my own, thankfully still joined to my body, and Lanissa popped the lobster's head, carapace and feelers and all, into her mouth and crunched it up in delight.

I kept staring. 

Lanissa swallowed. “Sorry,” she said, suddenly sheepish. “I was starving. I'll go get you a plate and a knife. Human style, right?”

She placed the dead lobster on the table and disappeared. 

The headless crustacean faced me. Oh god, what the hell had I gotten myself into? Lanissa was a dragonewt. Even being brought up in a human country and dressing like a human and going to a human school and speaking perfect Common did not make you a human. She was still a dragonewt, through and through. How was this going to work?

She returned and popped the lobster on the plate and handed me the knife.

“You couldn't find any shellfish pliers?” I asked. 

“No human ones,” she said, lifting a clawed hand with a smile. With dexterous grace, she peeled the lobster out of his shell. I was reminded of what the stylist had said.

“Um, I'll just go get out of this armour.”

Lanissa glanced up from her work. Her face was flushed. “Okay,” she said. “You don't want to eat first?”

“I'll feel more comfortable in my room clothes,” I said. 

Lanissa breathed out, seemingly relieved. 

I disappeared into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. I took off the greaves and placed them in the empty chest which I assumed was their home. The cuirass gave me trouble, though. The stylist had used some kind of knot in the thongs I couldn't solve.

“Lanissa, can you help me with this?”

Lanissa. I guess I should have called her 'darling' or something like that. That's what husbands do, right? 

Lanissa ducked her head in. “What's the matter?”

I explained my problem. She went to wash her hands then returned and sat down next to me on the bed. Her weight made the mattress sink and pulled me against her. 

It was my turn to blush. I'd pressed up against her hip and bust. She was incredibly warm underneath that dress, totally unlike a snake or other reptile.

Of course she wasn't cold. That blood of hers ran hot. 

“Oh, this is a simple knot,” she said. With a flick of a claw it came loose and she helped me with the heavy cuirass. 

I lay back, breathing freely at last and feeling lighter than air now I was out of my armour. Lanissa remained on the bed. Her eyes stayed glued to me as I hopped off the bed and put the cuirass away. I guess she didn't want to be embarrassed by those wall hangings again. 

“Let's go eat,” I said.

\--------------------

Lanissa was impressed by my sashimi-slicing skills. I 'll admit I hammed it up. 

“All part of the culinary training my dad made us all take,” I said. “He's always said that if a man can't cook he's not worth spit.” I frowned. “Actually, that's a pretty ugly saying. Forget it.”

Lanissa laughed. “I always wondered what your dad was like,” she said. “When we were in school, I mean. I hardly ever saw him.”

I nodded, frowning. My father had only ever come to a few of my school events. Lanissa's dad had been the same. It was one of the few things we'd had in common, come to think of it.

“I guess he was just always busy,” I said. 

“Just like my dad,” said Lanissa. She popped a piece of raw lobster into her mouth and murmured in delight. “This is really good!”

I would have liked some soy sauce and radish root, but she was right. The lobster was excellent. 

“You know,” she said. “When I heard your dad had become the ambassador to Dragon's Tooth I was really excited. I thought you were going to come here with him. I guess it was a stupid thing to think.”

I laughed. “Maybe. There's no way he'd have asked me to come with him unless he wanted something. He's always had more time for my older brothers. I should have guessed he wanted something from me this time as well.”

Lanissa raised a single eyebrow. It really was an adorable habit of hers. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, this whole wedding thing,” I said. I took another sip of wine. “I thought he wanted to spend time with me, but no, like usual, he needed me for a job.”

“A job,” said Lanissa. She brought her glass to her lips and drank, her little forked tongue slipping out into the glass as she did so. “That makes it sound like a real pain.”

“We have no choice, right?” I sighed. “You know, I really hope that we can avert this war...”

Lanissa replaced her glass on the table. “How civic minded of you.” 

“Well, it was my father's idea,” I said. “And your father's, too.”

Lanissa looked at me. She wasn't smiling. “You know, I've suddenly realised something about you.”

“What's that?”

“Back at school you never did anything of your own accord,” she said. “You were always happy to go along with the flow. I used to like that about you. So many of the other boys were so loud and obnoxious, typical children of politicians. You were so different. I thought it was generosity of spirit that stopped you from trying to make people do what you wanted. Now I realise it's just weakness.”

I blinked at her. “Weakness?” 

“Yes, weakness.” She stood up and walked away.

I got up and followed her. “Lanissa, wait.”

She turned. “What are you going to do? Grab me or something?” There were tears in her eyes. “We've been married for a couple of hours and the only time we've been close to each other you kept trying to squirm out of my embrace.”

“Lanissa, it's just that...”

“'Just that.'” She snorted. “I'm such a fool!”

I felt a rising panic. If she walked out of the marriage now…

But it wasn't just that. Those tears in her beautiful golden eyes had shocked me. I'd only ever seen those eyes of hers so utterly fragile one other time in my life, in those moments before the play.

I ran to her, took hold of her wrist. She shook herself free and turned blazing eyes on me. “It's too late,” she said. “Dramatic gestures aren't going to accomplish anything.”

She stalked into the bedroom. I followed her, expecting her to have thrown herself on the bed. Instead she was at the far wall, taking something down off it.

Wait. The crossed swords. I took a step back. Dragonewts were a warlike race, but surely Lanissa wasn't planning to…

She turned, a sword in each hand. She saw my alarm and a grim smile appeared on her lips. 

“Scared?” she said. “I thought you were braver than that. I mean, you've married your people's mortal enemy, right? That's pretty courageous, I would've thought.”

She threw one of the swords at me - no, to me. I caught it. 

“We missed one the most important parts of a dragonewt wedding, you know,” she said, advancing on me. “Traditionally, bride and groom fight a show battle to demonstrate that their strength is equal and that they're compatible. You know how to use a sword, right?”

“Yes, but-”

“Thank god,” she said. “Well, I think I've made a huge mistake marrying you. You have to beat me, or else I'm flying straight out that door.”

“But the war, Lanissa!”

Her face turned to a mask of rage, but there were tears in her eyes as well. “I don't give a damn about the war, you fool! Now defend yourself or die!”

She flew at me and I raised my blade just in time to ward off her attack. Her blow slid off my sword, and my hands burned in agony from the shuddering impact. 

She wasn't holding back! I'd thought this was all for the sake of drama. I was wrong.

She attacked again and again I barely warded off the blow. I almost tripped over my own feet. Feet. Your stance. That's right. What did the instructor say? Stay on your feet or you die. 

Lanissa's blows came thick and fast. She was well-trained, but her anger made her overcompensate. Desperate, I capitalised on this weakness. She was far stronger than me, after all. 

“Lanissa!” I cried over the sparking blows of our blades. 

“Shut up!” she said. “Fight back or I'll kill you!”

“I don't want to hurt you!”

“Too late, you fool, too late!” Her voice was a sob. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“I don't hate you,” I said, dodging a stab from the side and pushing myself back away from the corner of the bed. 

“Liar,” she hissed. “Liar. I thought… I thought that you were happy to marry me. But this is all just a job, isn't it? An obligation, some selfless sacrifice?”

“Lanissa, I-”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Blows rained down on me and I stumbled backwards. “God, I'm such a fool. I thought you were just shy. But you really do hate me, don't you? Even back at school, you hated me. That's why you wouldn't talk to me before the play. You knew what I was going to say, didn't you? You knew how I felt!”

Her sword flew at my face. I stepped aside but it nicked the edge of my ear. Sharp pain lit my anger and I stopped playing the defensive game. 

“What the hell is your problem!” I shouted at her. My attack took her off guard and she stumbled backwards, her sword raised to ward off my flurry of swift but unruly blows. “That stupid goddamn play!”

“Yes!” she spat back. “That stupid goddamn play! Do you know how excited I was to be on stage beside you, how hard it was to get all the kids to vote for you and-”

“I knew it,” I said through gritted teeth. “You made my life a misery. Is this all just part of the same game to you, some sick new bullying?”

I lunged at her. She raised her sword and our blades shrieked against each other. Lanissa's gold eyes blinked at me from over the fusing blades. “Bullying? What are you talking about?”

I smiled grimly. “Don't play stupid,” I said. I drew my blade back and smashed it down on hers. “Everything you did to belittle me, everything you did to make my life a misery! I thought you'd changed!” I saw the red mist and smashed my blade over and over against hers, as though trying to cut my way through to her, the source of all that humiliation. 

Lanissa fell back against the bed, desperately deflecting the rage-filled blows raining down upon her. The anger had fled from her face, replaced with confusion, but I didn't see it. Madness had overtaken me, a strange mixture of anger and frustration and despair. I lunged a final blow at her, not holding anything back, and she barely raised her own weapon in time. My blade struck hers and she gasped, her weapon spinning from her stinging grasp. I leaped on top of her, pushing her back on the bed, the edge of my blade pressed against her neck.

Maybe I had wanted to hurt her. Rage still filled me. But when she didn't cry out or struggle and merely looked up at me with her large golden eyes, I hesitated.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why all this, Lanissa?” 

My hand trembled. The blade slipped against the pale skin of her neck, leaving a line of blue. Her blood. 

She took hold of my hand. She made no move to push the sword away or disarm me, just held it. 

“Why?” she asked. Her frown reappeared and she turned her face away. “Isn't it obvious? I love you, you fool.”

The sword slipped from my grasp, but still she held my hand. I trembled. She raised her other hand to her neck, took it away and looked at the blue stain on her finger tips.

“Blood,” she said.

My stomach turned with the iciness of guilt. “Lanissa, I'm...”

But she was smiling. 

“Marriage duels are to first blood,” she said. “I guess you are worthy to be my husband after all.”

She grimaced, then, and I remembered I was lying on top of her. I grew aware of the warmth of her body, its firmness beneath the silk of her dress, and I rolled off her, blushing.

She sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at me. The smile had returned to her face. “I knew you weren't weak,” she said. “I could never have fallen in love with a weak man.”

I stared at her, my mind still reeling. A moment ago I'd been fighting for my life and now she was telling me…

“How long, Lanissa?” I whispered. “How long have you-?”

She squeezed her clawed hands together and wrung them. “Oh, I don't know when, exactly. Not long after I met you, though.” Her eyes sought mine and her smile turned fragile. “Do you remember how we met?”

I thought back. The play and the other bullying was all I'd really remembered over the years, but now, having seen her face again...

“I remember,” I said. “You were lost, weren't you? I helped you find your class, I think.”

She shook her head. “I was crying. You don't remember that?” She lifted a hand to my face. “Yours was the first face at that school that ever smiled at me. I guess that's why I can't forget it.”

The touch of her fingers was shy. I brought my own hand up and covered hers. Even with scales and claws, it was a soft hand, feminine and gentle and I felt my blood run faster. 

“You don't remember, do you?” she whispered. “How you befriended me? The other kids were scared of me. I was the first dragonewt at the school, and back then there was talk of war between our two countries, almost as bad as things are now. People would call me a 'scaly' in the street. But you… you didn't care about that at all. You were so kind to me.”

I frowned. Come to think of it, I did remember. Lanissa's face, smiling back at me with all those teeth, her big gold eyes gleaming. How I'd been fascinated with her wings and tail, how I'd be surprised to find her scales were soft and warm to the touch, nothing like what I'd expected, when my hand touched hers. I remembered how boring my life had been, how how lonely I'd been before I met her.

But why? Why had we…?

A sickening realisation gripped me. I took her hand from my face, placed it on the bed between us, but still held it. I looked away, unable to meet her eyes.

“You… you weren't bullying me, were you?” I muttered. “All that stuff you did. It was just you being… well, you, right?”

I looked back. Lanissa was nodding. Her smile was nostalgic, rueful. 

“I… I guess I've always been bad at expressing my feelings,” she said. “Even for a dragonewt. Back then I didn't realise that humans did things differently. I was just a kid, a kid who had no idea what she was doing, what she was feeling.”

I closed my eyes. “I was a kid, too. And I was weak, Lanissa. I still am, I guess. Weak and scared.”

How had I come to hate her so much? It was easy to hate someone if you loved them, especially if you were afraid of loving them...

If you loved them….

Why had I gone along with this marriage? I'd barely made any attempt to slip my way out of it and run, like I always did when presented with some problem I didn't want to deal with. Why had I even entertained the thought of spending my life with this person, if all she'd been to me was a bully?

Memories, long forgotten, came surging back. 

“I wanted to know what it felt like to fly, didn't I?” I remembered. “And you were still learning how and...”

Lanissa nodded. “…and I lifted you up from behind. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It was a surprise,” I said and laughed. “I guess it was all my struggling that made you drop me.”

Lanissa lowered her gaze. “I was a terrible flier back then. I never should have… I never should have kept trying to make you like it.”

I shook my head. “My leg was barely out of its cast when you took me flying again. It was even more terrifying the second time. And you never took no for an answer.”

She squeezed my hand. “Please forgive me. It's just… it's just that I had this big idea, of taking you flying with me, to some tiny little deserted island somewhere, a place we could be alone.”

“I remember,” I said with a chuckle. “I thought you were teasing me. And when I started panicking and you brought me back down...”

“Everyone laughed at you,” Lanissa said. “I felt ashamed.” Her eyes were pleading. “But I never lifted you up when there was anyone around again after that!”

“So that's why you'd lie in wait for me going home from school,” I said. “I thought you were stalking me.”

Lanissa blushed. “I.. I guess I was hunting you, after a fashion. I just wanted you to like flying, to like… me.”

I sighed. “And the play.” I wrapped myself on the head with my knuckles. “How could I be so stupid!”

“No,” said Lanissa. “I was the stupid one. If I'd just come out and told you how I felt-”

“But you tried to, didn't you?” I murmured. “Before the play, just before we went out on stage. That was what you wanted to talk to me about.” 

“It only took me ten years to tell you,” she said. She looked up at me through the bars of her dark lashes. “But I still don't know how.”

“Lanissa,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “For the past decade all I've thought about was you. I mean, I remembered you as a bully, but..” I sighed. “You don't lie there at night thinking about your bully, wondering what she's doing, missing her, wanting to see her… to see her again, do you?”

Lanissa's eyes grew moist. “You... missed me?”

“When I lifted your veil,” I said. “And saw your face, it felt like I'd found something I hadn't even realised I was missing.”

“So,” she whispered. “So this isn't all just a job?”

“I was stupid to say that,” I said. “But you know? I've spent my life avoiding things, avoiding responsibilities, but when I knew it was you, running away didn't even occur to me.”

“You're just being selfless,” she murmured. “Even now. You're doing it to stop the war. To save your people.”

“I might not know myself very well,” I said. “But one thing I do know is that I don't have a selfless bone in my body.” 

“So why are you still here?” she whispered.

“Because I love you too, you fool.”

With a cry Lanissa melted into my arms - no, melt is the wrong word. Having two hundred pounds of curvaceous dragonewt thrust upon you can't really be called melting. I fell backwards on the bed with her on top of me. I gasped, the breath squashed out of me, and with an embarrassed look of apology she lifted herself off, a hand on either side of my head, and blushed down at me as I drew in a welcome lung-full of air. 

“You.. you really love me?”

For once I didn't miss my cue, even though I was half-asphyxiated. I leaned up and brought my lips against hers. I felt the warmth of a wisp of her breath as she gasped against my mouth, and then the daintiest touch of a hot, wet tongue against my own. 

This was no chaste wedding kiss, no ostentatious kiss for the stage. It was a hungry kiss, inexperienced but eager, and I let her take the lead. After all, as a dragonewt her tongue was much longer than mine and wrestling my way past her lips was not an option. 

At last she broke away, gasping. But the shine in her golden eyes told me she was just catching her breath. 

I took my opening. I lifted my hands, cupping her chin so that my fingers touched the gorgeous softness of her neck just below the ears and kissed her, this time taking charge. She gave a half-hearted defence at first, but then with a moan she let me slip my tongue between her lips and into the fragrant heat and wetness of her mouth. 

I was surprised by how inexperienced she seemed, but then I realised that kissing has always been more of a human thing. I suppose when you've a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, kissing becomes a more daring prospect. But Lanissa seemed to have no problem with keeping her teeth out of the way. She proved a natural at kissing and soon realised that there was no need to wrestle so much. Her kisses grew tender, though they lost none of their eagerness. This time I was the one to break away. 

She stared down at me, a pleased smile on her lips. Even despite the jaggedness of her mouthful of canines, it was a charming smile, the smile of a little girl proud of getting her own way. 

“So that's what I missed out on during the play,” she said. “If I'd known it was this much fun, I would have been even madder at you.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Again with the play? Maybe this will shut you up.”

I kissed her again, longer this time. Her arms drew me deeper into her embrace, crushing me against her ample breasts and I wondered why I'd been so stupid and so blind. I could have enjoyed these embraces long ago if I hadn't been such a child.

My romantic history flew past my eyes. I'd always seemed to go for the tougher kind of girl, the tomboy type, knights and armourers and crafters and the like, tall and statuesque. I'd got a lot of gentle ribbing from my older brothers about it, but it hadn't stopped me. I liked girls with some power and some edge to them. But that type of girl expects a man to constantly one-up them, to beat them at their own game. I always proved a bit too sensitive for them, and the relationships never lasted that long.

Now I realised I'd been chasing a phantom, a memory of my first love, the girl I'd fallen in love with and hadn't even realised it. And now she was in my arms, her lips pressed against mine, murmuring with pleasure as we shared the heated kiss of a man and wife. 

I felt myself growing hard. There was no way Lanissa could avoid noticing it, pressed up against her as it was. She broke the kiss and looked at me, startled.

“That's.. that your thing, isn't it?”

“My... thing?” I grinned at the charming childishness of her expression. So the daughter of the dangerous and vicious dragonewt race, the mortal enemies of humans, calls a penis a 'thing'? 

She nodded.

“Uh, male dragonewts have 'things' as well, right?” 

Her crest bristled and she narrowed her eyes, although her blush betrayed her embarrassment. “Of course they do,” she said. “It's just that I don't have any experience with humans.”

“You don't have to worry,” I said. I drew the palms of my hands across her back. The firmness of her flesh beneath the sheerness of her dress' material did nothing to make my erection go down, and her blushing had made me even harder. “Dragonewts and humans are physically almost identical, and I'm a pretty typical example of a human. I don't think anything will shock you.”

Lanissa grew calmer and drew back close to me. I felt a twinge of pleasure from the pressure of her bodyweight on my erection and I kissed her beside her ear. I was pretty sure dragonewt girls would like that, too, and I wasn't mistaken. She made a deep, contented sound in her throat, not unlike a purr and her wings trembled.

“What's that sound?” I asked.

Her eyes flicked open. “What sound?”

“That purring.”

“Oh!” It was her turn to smile at my naivety. “That's just the sound dragonewts make when they're happy.”

“So you're happy, then?”

She said nothing but just nodded and nuzzled her face into the crook of my neck. 

I stroked her hair and we lay that like for a long while, just enjoying each other's closeness. The scent of her was thick, that delicious nostalgic scent I'd had no idea I'd missed so much. 

My erection showed no sign of going down and I grew frustrated, especially enveloped in the embrace of such a beautiful woman. I gently pushed her away and sat up. Lanissa gold eyes were questioning. 

“Uh,” I said, suddenly awkward. “Why don't we have a bath and get ready for bed? I think maybe I got a bit sweaty during our… er, argument.”

Lanissa leaned forward and sniffed me. “I like the smell of your perspiration.” Then she sat up beside me. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “But a bath would be nice. That spa looked beautiful, didn't it?”

I stood up and took her hand. “Let's go, then.”

She blinked at me. “What, together?”

I chuckled, charmed by her innocence, even if it was all an act. “It's okay, Lanissa. We're husband and wife, now.”

She nodded, a resolute expression on her face. But just outside the door of the spa she grew shy again. 

“Um, is it okay if I go first?” she asked. “I just need to wash myself a little first. I think I'm a bit sweaty, too. And there's...” She placed a finger below the thin blue line on her neck.

Suddenly guilty, I nodded. “That's fine. Let me know when I can come in, okay?”

Thankful, she ducked inside. I stood there, listening to the sound of the running water and her splashing. Women were the same everywhere, I guess, always trying to outdo each other in coyness. I looked about, growing a little bored, and spotted our night clothes sitting folded in a little alcove nearby where they'd been placed by whoever had organised our room for us. I had my pyjamas, well-suited for the warm nights of my homeland, while beside them was a little square of sheer material – a nightdress and underwear. It was all quite erotic, and I remembered seeing one of the female dragonewts in the wall-hangings in the bedroom wearing something similar.

My erection reappeared, just in time for Lanissa to call to me to come in. 

I stripped off and put my clothes together in a small folded pile. I'd have to get used to being a bit more organised with my stuff now I was no longer a bachelor. I waited a short while until my erection went down a little, wrapped a towel around my waist then opened the door and walked in.

The spa room was filled with steam. There was a delicious, sweet herbal scent and the whole place was lit with a deep orange glow like candlelight. 

“I'm over here,” came Lanissa's voice from deep amid the glowing steam.

I moved forward into the steam. Gusts of it parted as I took each step, careful not to slip on the wet tiles. Soon I found the water and I took off the towel and slipped in. It was incredibly hot and I yelped and pulled myself back out.

I heard gentle laughter to my left and the steam parted to reveal Lanissa's head and shoulders as she swam up toward me. She moved quickly, her long tail flicking behind her- dragonewts, like their smaller reptilian cousins, are adept swimmers. I remembered I was naked and having caught a sense of embarrassment from Lanissa's earlier shyness, I slipped back into the water, biting my lip so that I didn't cry out from the heat.

Lanissa, meanwhile, had swum to the side of the bath and was turning a faucet. Cold water sluiced in and by degrees the volcanic bath I was boiling in shifted back into a temperature my weak human body could tolerate.

“Sorry,” she said as she swam up to me. “I forgot that humans don't like their baths quite as hot as us.” A gently mocking smile appeared on her lips. “I think there's a lot of things I'll have to try and remember about humans now that I'm your wife.”

I smiled back at her. My wife. I was still getting used to the idea. I guess this whole marriage was a lot like the hot bath, a shock to the system I'd have to get used to by degrees. 

I lay back, my back against the rocky edge of the bath. Lanissa stayed out in the middle of the bath, waving her hands and wings and tail through the water. The steam had grown thinner with the introduction of the cool water and I could see her clearly, although the effervescence of the bath placed a discrete veil over her body below the waterline. 

The top half of her breasts, made buoyant by the water, poked up amongst the bubbles, and I noticed she was even more busty than her low-cut dress had revealed. Her iridescent scales extended down from her neck across her shoulder-blades, but elsewhere her pale flesh had turned pink with the heat of the water, and her dark hair, loosened from the confines of its formal style, lay about her in the water like spilled ink. 

My mouth fell open and I left it hanging there. Lanissa was pleased with the reaction and she reached forward and touched my arm. 

I looked at her, surprised by her sudden movement, and she gave my arm a squeeze. 

“I was worried you'd ended up boiled,” she said. “I mean, your skin is almost as red as those cooked shrimps you humans eat.”

I laughed. “I think I survived.”I pulled my arm through her grip until my hand ended up in hers and I drew her alongside me.

She looked across at me, her eyes wide, and as I leaned forward to kiss her she closed her eyes and tilted her head. This time we kissed like we'd been doing it for years. I drew her closer to me, although she hesitated before letting me. Our bodies came together, slick sliding and hot in the water, as our tongues did, and my heart skipped at the voluptuous luxuriousness of her body.

Lanissa pushed me against the edge of the bath, her kiss growing more aggressive, her tongue dipping into my mouth and I began to feel like I had when she'd swept me off my feet in high school for our impromptu flights together. 

Swept me off my feet. It was true. Had I really only arrived at Dragon's Tooth two days ago? Lanissa had swept me up and dragged me along with her fate, and I was the helpless, if willing, victim of that luck of hers which always let her get her own way. 

At last she gave up her attack and I slumped back, gasping, against the side of the bath. That mocking, superior smile had slipped back onto her lips. 

“I guess you enjoyed that,” she murmured. She leaned close to me and her tongue slipped out, sliding over my neck in a single, teasing flick. She considered me with humour in her glittering gold eyes. “You like my long tongue?”

“Very much,” I said, still breathless. I was rock hard and my blood ran quick with that itchy tension you get when you're overexcited. Lanissa's control of the situation made me ache for more. But slipping and sliding in the bath, while fun, was not how I imagined we should spend our first time together, especially since that opulent bed with its silks and pillow waited for us. Lanissa seemed a little disappointed when I suggested we get out of the bath, but when I mentioned the bed her smile became shy and she nodded. 

“It's been an exciting evening, hasn't it?”

I got out first and wrapped myself in the wealth of towels left for us then slipped into my night clothes. I glanced at the silky, lacy pile in Lanissa's alcove as I left the bathroom for her to dry and get dressed.

I was hard again and was glad she wasn't watching as I hobbled my way through the suite. Should I wait for her out in the living area? No, I decided I didn't want things to slow down. Even just with her body against mine and kissing me I'd gotten close to the edge and my body was tingling with frustration. I jumped onto the bed with boyish joy, suddenly playful, and lay full length, waiting for my bride to appear.

Lanissa was no different from any other girl and I was waiting a long time. But finally I heard the soft patter of her bare feet on the stone floor in the corridor and she appeared. A single clawed hand curled about the door and then she poked her head in. 

Her hair was dry, a great wave of soft blackness that flowed about her face. Her skin was still pink from the bath and her scales glowed with their iridescence. As soon as her eyes met mine she blushed.

“Um, promise you won't laugh,” she said. “The sleepwear they left me is a bit skimpy.”

With uncharacteristic shyness Lanissa pushed the door open and stepped into to the room. She was not wrong with her description of her bedclothes. 

The negligee she wore was sheer, as though she was wreathed again in that glowing steam. The light blue complemented her bath-pink skin beautifully, and a lot of it was on display. The hem of the negligee extended barely halfway down her thighs and hugged her ample hips, making her waist seem all the more slender. As she timidly made her way to the bed she almost fell out of the top of it, so deeply cut was the decolletage. She really had filled out as she'd grown up, the flat-chested teenager a distant memory. Without a bra her breasts shifted as she walked, and my eyes drank in the gorgeous embodiment of the firmness and suppleness I'd had pressed against me earlier in the bath. 

And behind her, lifting the hem of the negligee, Lanissa carried her tail. It was a long tail, a beautiful one, and I realised then that having a long tail must be a reason for envy amongst dragonewts. Along with her wings, It was a delightful balance to the rest of her body, and just as she wiggled her hips beneath the blue silk, so too did her tail exhibit a shy but sensuous sexiness in the way it flicked the air with its tip. 

I reached out and took her hand. Her eyes had never left my body as she'd approached, but now she looked into my eyes. She flushed and dropped her gaze straight away at my approving smile. 

“It's… it's not too revealing?”

I slipped my hand to her cheek. “You look beautiful.”

Her eyes flicked back to mine, panicked. “You do too!” Then her flush deepened and she muttered, “Handsome, I mean. I mean, you look handsome. Really handsome.”

I indicated the bed with a nod of the head and as she climbed onto it I took hold of her waist and helped her. She squealed and as soon as she was on the bed she broke free and clambered over my quilt-covered body to her side, where she dove under the covers.

I turned over and watched as she popped her head back up next to where her tail was already poking out. I reached for her and blushing she took hold of my hands. I leaned forward and timidly she permitted me to kiss her. She soon broke the kiss, however, and I wondered what was wrong. Since we'd left the bath she'd become far more demure than the aggressive girl who'd wrestled me in the water and kissed me breathless. But I found the contrast charming and I was willing to go along with the silly game.

“There's no need to be so shy,” I murmured. “We're husband and wife now. There's no-one to disturb us… unless, of course, the council has sent agents to assassinate us.”

It was a stupid joke, made up on the cuff, but I suddenly grew alarmed at the thought. My nervousness must have translated onto my face as Lanissa laughed and rolled her eyes.

“I left my sword under the bed,” she said, her breath hot and sweet so close to my face. “If any bad people come I'll be ready to defend your honour.”

I groaned, recognising the line from the play. “You know, your dad said that people still talk about that damn play.”

Lanissa laughed. “it's not nearly as bad as you think, you know. Everyone thought you were in on the whole thing. They were impressed that you were humble enough to let me steal the limelight.”

“Was that what it was?”

She poked me with a claw. “I saved the play, remember? If I hadn't grabbed your sword and started swinging we'd probably still be up on that stage with you staring dumbly at it.”

I chuckled. Strange how that memory had so quickly been turned on its head. I'd wasted so many years obsessing over it, about how I'd looked to everyone, when it hadn't mattered at all. Weakness, like I said. But maybe I'd remember it as humility from now on. Lanissa had that way with her. She gave me strength just by thinking about her. 

I slipped my hands around her waist and she shivered. Ah, so she was still playing this game. Maybe dragonewt girls were naturally submissive in bed. I glanced about at the wall hangings and quickly became confused. The female dragonewts depicted there were easily dominant at least half the time, either perched atop their lovers and holding them down, caressing them with their tails or pulling them against their naked bodies. Then I realised that Lanissa probably thought that human girls were submissive, and I would want her to act that way, too. 

The idea of her being so eager to please charmed me. It was her blushing at the wall hangings all over again. 

“Shall we turn off the lights?” I asked her. 

Her face flickered with a strange mixture of anxiety and relief. “Would you? I'm a little… a little shy, I guess.”

“You've got nothing to be shy of,” I said. I got out and turned down the lights till the room fell into a deep twilight. “Is that okay?”

I saw the indefinite shape of her nod. 

I didn't mind doing it in the almost dark. There'd be lots of opportunities to appreciate her naked form later as her husband. It made sense that she was a little bashful. We'd only just met again after all those long years earlier today. 

My senses after a period of blind stumbling slowly grew more acute. I slid into the bed and fumbled for her. My blind hands slipped over her arms and onto her chest. Those ample breasts presented a wonderful firmness through the slinky material, her nipples large and very hard. Lanissa gasped as my hands slipped across them and grasped my hand, pulling it to her lips. The moist heat across my skin made me eager for her lips against mine, and I searched for them in the dark, my mouth brushing along the soft expanse of her neck and ear to dart across to her mouth. She was panting by the time I reached it and as I dipped my tongue into her mouth, her own was there to meet it, heavy and hungry as before. 

My hands slid down to her hips to lift the hem of her negligee, and after a playful attempt to stop me, she helped me lift it over her shoulders. We broke the kiss for a moment to do so, but quickly her mouth sought mine again. I made an attack on her underwear, but she slapped my hands away and quickly got to work stripping me from my pyjamas. Her hands fumbled at the buttons and then tore the top from around my shoulders before she began pulling at the bottoms. I helped her, untying the cord, and soon the damn things were off and I was free and naked. 

My hands dropped to her hips again, her own hands ready to meet them there. I redoubled my kisses, slipping off her lips to kiss and nibble at her neck. She gasped and squirmed but still her hands stood guard on her holiest of holies.

“Lanissa, darling,” I murmured as I drew my tongue across the edge of her ear. “It's not fair for me to be naked on my own, you know. It's pretty cold.”

“Ah! But.. but if we go all the way, I might get pregnant.”

“Is that such a bad thing? Everyone said we should start trying for a clutch as soon as possible.”

My words elicited a little gasp. “You.. you want to have babies with me?”

I laughed. “Is that a bad thing? I think you'll make a wonderful mother.”

With a sigh she dropped her hands away and grasping the waistband I slid her underwear off, taking my time, enjoying the sensation of the roughness making way for the exquisite smoothness of her hips and thighs. She helped by lifting a leg and I soon had her underwear off and promptly lost them somewhere in the bedclothes. But I'd felt that tell-tale hot wetness, and the scent of Lanissa's excitement was thick about me.

My own excitement was obvious. I drew Lanissa's hand down to my erection, but instead she placed her hands around my hips and pulled me against her. Her hands slipped across my sides and around my torso, drawing the rest of me closer and her lips murmured hot breath against mine. 

“I'm ready,” she whispered.

She crushed me in her embrace, her large breasts with their generous nipples squashed against my chest, and my erection, pressed up against my abdomen and squeezed between us, encountered an incredible heat and wetness. I gasped at the sudden jet of pleasure that sparked along my back and Lanissa echoed it, her lips hovering above mine. Then she pressed her hips harder against mine, the length of my erection against the diamond-hardness of the centre of her own pleasure. 

She started to rub herself against me, panting, and delighted by her abandon I slipped my tongue into her mouth, kissing her deeply. I felt, then, what I thought was a third arm slipping around my hips and buttocks and for a moment I was alarmed and confused by the sensation. But then the tip of her tail slipped across my waist and I realised what it was. I'd seen something like that on the wall hangings, the dragonewt lovers entwining their tails together. Of course, I had no tail, but Lanissa didn't seem to mind, the tip of her tail drumming against one buttock as her panting and rubbing grew more eager. 

I humoured her, knowing well that one climax wouldn't be enough for her. As a sensitive lover I had no problem with delaying my own pleasure for her. Besides, her gasps and frenzied kissing were adorable and I knew she'd be eager to please me later. I tried to slip out of her embrace, planning to bring her the final leg of her delight with my mouth and tongue, eager to taste the flavour that accompanied her beautiful spicy scent, but she kept me in place, her hips glued to mine.

Her humping grew frenzied and her pants and gasps became sharp cries. Then, tearing her lips from mine, she threw her head back and moaned a deep, guttural sound deep in her throat as her body shuddered against me. Languor took hold of her limbs, so I helped her by taking over, slipping against her rock-hard button as she trembled and squeezed me to her. Her kisses became bites and it was my turn to cry out when her teeth scored my neck. 

Then at last she fell away, panting, her tail extricating itself from me to lie across the bed like an exhausted snake. I rolled onto my side and kissed her ear, neck and shoulders as the final throes of her orgasm shivered through her.

We lay there together a short while. Then she jerked awake and sat up. With a clap of her hands she brought the lights up. Her face was flushed, her dark hair a maelstrom from the tossing of her head. When she saw me she cried out and grabbed me, kissing my face over and over.

“Oh, darling! I had no idea it would feel so good!”

The excitement on her face was so adorable I forgot for a moment about my aching erection. I grinned at her and said, “Well, if you thought that felt good...”

But Lanissa wasn't paying any attention to me. She's slipped her hands down under the sheets and after a moment she brought them back up. Her hand was slick with her excitement and she stared at the glistening spot, frowning. Then she laughed and lay back.

“Oh, I knew there'd be no blood,” she said. “I guess my tutor was just being senile.”

I chuckled. “I'd be worried if there was any blood.” 

Lanissa sighed. “I know, right?” She rolled over to face me. “So, do you think you got me pregnant?”

I opened my mouth, ready to burst out laughing when I noticed how earnest her expression was. Instead, I just stared at her. 

“Uh, Lanissa. You… you do know how sex works, right?”

She frowned. “Of course I do.” Her eyes found the many discrete illustrations of lovemaking scattered across the wall-hangings. “I mean, it's not hard to work out, right? A male and a female lie naked together with their bodies against each other. And eventually you climax-” Her voice fell to almost a whisper for that word. “-and that's how it works. My tutor told me all about it, but the silly old thing said there was going to be blood and that it was nothing to be worried about.”

“Well,” I said, following her gaze. I still half-believed this was all a joke and I tried and failed to control the smile popping onto my face. “Uh, there might be a bit more to it than just lying together naked.”

A blush suffused her face. “Oh. I think I know what you're talking about. The other things you can do, right? Like, with our mouths...” Her voice fell low again.

The sight of the proud and confident girl rendered so helpless had slain my heart. Was it really possible for her to be so naive about such things? But then, she was the daughter of a suzerain and I'm sure that maybe people had tried to tell her about the birds and the bees in the past but she'd breezily told them she already knew all about it.

I took her hands in mine. 

“There's lots of things males and females can do together,” I said. “But I was talking about making a girl pregnant, really.”

Lanissa looked bewildered. “I still really don't understand how just rubbing together can make a baby, though.”

I nodded. “That's because there are a few little details I think you still don't know about.” And then, as matter of factly as I could, I explained the whole process to her.

She sat there silent for a long while. Then tears began to fall from her wide golden eyes.

“What's wrong?” I cried, alarmed. I didn't think my description of the process had been all that frightening and I'd been careful to stress that the hymen being broken was only a temporary sting.

“Oh, I'm such a little kid,” she sobbed, wringing her hands. “I wanted our first time to be special together and now you must think I'm so stupid!”

I threw my arms around her shoulders and drew her head against my chest. “It's okay to be inexperienced,” I said, stroking her hair. “And you're not stupid.” 

“But you must be so frustrated,” she muttered. “I left you lying there, without making you feel good at all!”

“You made me feel very good,” I said. “But there's no reason we can't try again. It's not like sex is something you only get one chance at.”

She sniffed, wiping the tears from her eyes with her wrist. “You're… you're not angry?”

I laughed. “No, but I think my heart might break from how cute you are.” I kissed her forehead. “Why don't we try again? Don't worry, I'll be very gentle.”

I caressed her back underneath her furled wings until she began to sigh. I've always found a back-rub helps smooth over most awkward situations in bed. I leaned down and kissed her, seeing her breasts, now free of the bedclothes that had dropped away while she'd been crying. They really were big, with high, dark nipples. I remembered how sensitive they'd proven to be earlier and I decided on a plan to relax her into learning how to make love.

As we kissed, I let my hands drop onto her chest just above her breasts. Her hands slid over mine and I thought for a moment I'd moved too fast for her, but she drew my hands lower, over her breasts, so that the hard nipples poked against my palms. I gently began to run my fingers across the wonderful smoothness of her delightfully soft-firm chest and she gasped. She pushed her face into the crook of my neck, her mouth flush with my skin, and as I caressed her she half-panted against, half-kissed my shoulder-blade and neck. 

I hefted a generous breast in each hand. She really was the most voluptuous woman I'd ever been with. Dragonewt bodies tended towards such dangerous curves and I delighted in their beautiful weight. I refrained from squeezing them – so many guys seem to think that that's all boobs are good for – and instead slipped my thumbs across her nipples, eliciting sharp gasps from her. 

I decided I shouldn't tease her too much. Even having climaxed earlier, Lanissa seemed hungry for more. I kissed her fragrant wet hair, then slid my lips down her ears and neck as I gently lay her back on the bed. Her golden eyes held mine, excited and nervous and shy all at once, and she closed them as I continued to kiss her, paying particular attention to the ridge of her shoulder blade and the spot near her armpit. 

Her scales were smooth and warm against my lips, a novel texture I'd never experienced before, and as I kissed lower I felt her tail sliding along my side. It really was a useful extension and as I hefted a beautiful breast in one hand, I let my other hand fall onto her tail.

It shivered under my touch and Lanissa gasped. Okay, so her tail was sensitive too. I suspected it was like an extension of her butt. I really had no idea how dragonewts used their tails beyond the few illustrations in the wall-hangings, but I knew there was no way she wouldn't enjoy having it caressed. 

I stroked it, running my fingers gently along its length, and I soon discovered from the deepening of her panting that the tip was especially sensitive. As I caressed it, my mouth found one nipple and then another and she was soon tossing her head and biting her lip to stop from crying out. 

“There's no need to keep your voice down,” I murmured. “There's no-one but me around to hear your beautiful voice.“

Lanissa nodded, but she kept fighting against crying out. I guess she was shy. I didn't mind. Her innocence had made me harder than iron and I dove onto her breasts, pushing them together so that I could attack both nipples at once. 

Lanissa's hands slipped onto my head and pushed me closer. I knew nipples as big as hers just had to be sensitive. I let my teeth brush across the top of them and this time she cried out. 

“Please,” she gasped. “Please bite them.”

Who was I to argue? I was gentle with my biting, merely taking each nipple between my teeth and flicking the tip with my tongue and soon Lanissa was squirming on the bed.

“If you like that, I think you'll like this even more,” I murmured.

I drew my mouth down her torso, kissing her firm, flat belly and working my way lower while I slid my hands over her ribs. I soon reached her belly button, which I playfully stuck my tongue into, and then I fell upon her thighs, kissing and licking them. 

The scent of her excitement so close to her sex was intense, a spicy fragrance that quickly put an end to my teasing. I kissed down along her pelvic bone and her abdomen then brought my hands onto her thighs and gently parted them.

“What… what are you doing?” she gasped.

She was completely bare without the slightest trace of pubic hair. So dragonewts were naturally hairless. It made sense, given their reptilian ancestry. The skin of her lower abdomen was incredibly soft against my mouth and tongue, but when I finally brought an end to the game and placed my lips against her sex, I found something even more impossibly delightfully smooth and soft, and with it a savoury-sweet deliciousness I'd never experienced from a woman before. 

Lanissa cried out as my tongue touched her between the legs and her hands fell on my head. I thought for a moment she was going to push me away, overcome by these new sensations pouring through her body, but instead she held me fast, desperate that I not stop what I was doing.

I smiled at her adorable desperation and with the gentle mouthing of her most sensitive promontory and the sliding of my tongue I convinced her that I had no intention of teasing her any more. 

She was hot and incredibly wet. I slipped my hands under her firm butt and lifted her lower half up so that we were more comfortable. I dipped my tongue deep into her and my head reeled with the intensity of her flavour. I decided to treat her to something I knew all girls enjoy and I lifted her legs up higher so that her knees drew closer to her stomach, revealing all of her to my eyes. Her butt was exposed and I dove upon it. 

“But that's my… ah!”

She struggled to pull away, but I held her fast. Of course, this should have been impossible, given how much stronger Lanissa was than me, but she was just behaving like any other modest girl, acting as though she was ashamed when wanting more. 

At last she pushed me away and gasping she sat up on her butt. 

“I want to do you, now,” she said, blushing. 

Her timidness was an act this time. She grabbed my shoulders and forced me back onto the bed. Grinning, she pushed my knees apart and fell upon me like she was starving. 

That grin! With her mouth full of sharp, dragonewt teeth, I was suddenly panicked despite being out of my mind with excitement. But I had nothing to worry about. Despite her inexperience, Lanissa was careful not to hurt me and as I slid into the incredible wet heat of her mouth I forgot all about my previous misgivings. 

Lanissa soon learned what I liked and the swirling and caressing of her long, dragonewt tongue put human women to shame. With her lying full-length on the bed, her big, shapely butt was on full display. She kicked her legs up and down, her long tail flicking in the air as she bobbed her head. The sight of her naked body and the wetness of her mouth soon brought me dangerously close to coming and regretfully I pushed her off. There was nothing in the world I would have enjoyed more than to have unloaded into her mouth, but that wasn't something a caring husband would do to his inexperienced wife. She deserved to reach the summit of her pleasure with me.

She looked up at me, her lips wet. “Did… did I do something wrong?” 

“No,” I gasped. “It felt incredible. It's just that I want us to come together.” I drew her up beside me and kissed her. “Shall we?”

She nodded, although there was nervousness on her face.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I'll be gentle. It should only hurt for a moment. Do you want me to switch the lights off?”

She shook her head. “No. I want to see you.” 

I laid her back like before, when I had tasted her, and gently lifted her knees, parting her thighs. I lay forward, marvelling at her shapeliness, and just how tall she was compared to me. But our difference in size made little difference. Hell, the fact she was a dragonewt and I was a human made no difference either. She was the woman I'd loved for so long, without even being aware of it, and now she was lying before me, her face flushed, her chest heaving with eagerness. She tired of my appreciation of her naked body and with a snort she drew me to her.

“Do I always have to make the first move?”

Her earlier submissiveness fled under the power of her excitement. She helped guide my hardness against her. She was sopping wet and the touch of her hot slickness sent pleasure shuddering through me. 

I leaned down and found her hungry mouth, our tongues intertwining as I slid forward into her. I tasted her gasp of pain as I broke through her maidenhead, and then another gasp as I went deeper. 

“Oh!”

“Are you okay?” I asked. “I can go slow if you...”

“No!” she cried. She threw her arms around my body and then her wings, and together they pulled me violently against her. I bottomed out inside her and she cried out.

“Lanissa, are you…?”

“Shut up and make me your wife!” she cried.

I didn't need any more encouragement. I drew myself out of her – a quick glance down showed a splash of blue, her maiden's blood, between us – but Lanissa's face was no longer framed with pain. She was sick with desire and as her husband it was my duty to please her. 

I slid back into her, slowly, almost teasingly, and she started to pant. My face was nestled in between her shoulder and neck and I could feel her hot breath on the top of my head. I slid back out, then in, and when she gave no sign of any more pain I fell into a gentle but energetic rhythm. The delight of being enveloped in that hot slipperiness is impossible to describe. Pleasure speared up my spine and Lanissa clung to me, her wings shivering, soft cries slipping from between her sharp teeth. The sight emboldened me to thrust more fervently into her, and soon she learned to bring her hips up against mine.

The two of us quickly found the rhythm that suited us best, a frenzied, hungry rhythm that lacked elegance, not that either of us cared. Lanissa dug her claws dug into my back and I bit my lip at the sharp pain, but it was quickly sublimated into the most exquisite pleasure. I attacked her neck, drawing my teeth across the smooth skin as her claws dug further into me. 

I struggled to keep from coming too soon. Lanissa was getting close, I could tell, from her increasingly desperate panting. I felt her grow even hotter around my shaft, a blistering heat that brought with it a new flood of her excitement, and she threw her legs around my back, hooking her taloned feet together to stop me from pulling away.

There was no way I was going to pull away. Her sex was squeezing me tightly and with each thrust I could sense myself getting close. I bit my lip until it bled, the pain holding me back from the precipice. I needed for us to come together, tonight, our first as man and wife. 

By the grace of the gods Lanissa did not keep me waiting. She could feel my increased eagerness and grinning, she brought her lips against mine.

“Don't hold back,” she murmured between gasps. “I need you.”

She pushed back at me wildly, trying to send me over the edge. Our hips clashed together and her pants became cries, sharp and hot, swallowed up by my mouth.

There was no holding back now. I slammed into her, all sense of control gone, and within moments Lanissa threw back her head and screamed. Her claws, nested in my back, spasmed, and my scream joined hers as they tore my flesh. I felt wet heat across my back, blood, and pain, but only for a heartbeat. A moment later I was coming, her screams and the clawing of my back driving me over the edge. My first spurt was so exquisitely pleasurable I barely registered it, but soon I was groaning out my desire against Lanissa's neck while I drove myself into her, bottoming out inside her as wave after wave of my semen poured into her. She crushed my body against hers, keeping the air driven from my lungs by my gasps from returning, and as the incredible pleasure of my climax flowed away and my spurts grew weaker, I soon founding myself desperate for air. 

Lanissa's eyes flew open and with a happy murmur she unhooked her legs and drew away her claws and wings and allowed me finally to pull out of her. A mixture of our mutual pleasure flowed out with me, but I paid the messiness no heed as I simultaneously drew sweet air into my lungs and gasped out in pain. The scratches in my back had ceased being a source of pleasure and were now burning like I'd been cut with a whip.

Lanissa sat up and threw her arms around my neck and held me agaisnt her. She said nothing for a long while, but then, as though waking from a dream, she drew her arms away and looked at me. 

“Is... is sex always like that?” she asked, her eyes shy.

“No,” I said. “No, not really.” I'd been just barely keeping myself upright with my hands pressed down against the mattress, but now the last of my energy fled and I slumped forward. Lanissa caught me and held me, and I felt sleep trying to swallow me up when a cry of alarm brought me back.

“What's wrong?”

“Your back!” she cried. “It's covered in blood!”

I managed a soft chuckle, but the effort made me wince with pain. “I think you may have been a bit overexcited,” I said with no little pride. 

I felt the mattress lighten. Lanissa had leaped off it. Then she gave another little cry. 

“There's blood everywhere!”

I realised there was no way I was going to get the sleep my body so desperately demanded of me, so with a sigh I scrambled of the bed. Lanissa was standing nearby, staring down at her hands and thighs, stained with a mixture of blue and red.

I laughed. “Just like the ritual?”

Lanissa blinked at me. “The ritual?”

“You know, during the wedding. A million years ago.” I took her hand. “Uh, maybe we should have another wash. I don't know if the owners of the suite are going to appreciate us leaving blood everywhere.” I glanced at the bed sheets and shook my head. “Gods. It looks like someone was murdered there.”

Lanissa looked herself and laughed. “Oh, you're right!” Then her face turned thoughtful. “So that's what my tutor was talking about. I thought she was joking.”

It was my turn to blink at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I suppose it's another ritual, really,” she said. “The sheets of our wedding bed will be displayed before the Assembly tomorrow - as proof of our mating.” She blushed. “Now I understand what it's all about, it really is very embarrassing.”

I began to say something but the effort made me wince. My back felt cold and wet and my thighs were sticky. I decided that any other surprises of being married to a dragonewt could wait until after we'd cleaned ourselves up.

\----------------------------------

We made love again while we were bathing, and this time things were slower, gentler, less frenzied. Lanissa was more agile than me in the water, unsurprising given dragonewts semi-aquatic nature. Afterwards we lay together, spent, in the water. I felt sleep slipping over me and joked about falling asleep and drowning, but Lanissa took my jest seriously. She quickly bundled me out of the water and we dried ourselves. Luckily, we'd been plentifully supplied with thick, fluffy towels. Lanissa also found some bandages, which she wrapped about my torso with gentle hands, apologising all the while. 

Bandages. Well, I wasn't at all surprised there were some on hand, given I'd just had a taste of how violent a dragonewt wedding night could be.

Afterwards, we stripped the bed and found some more linen. Lanissa folded the blood-stained sheets with care and set them aside, blushing, while I remade the bed. 

We slumped onto the mattress together. Lanissa lay her head on my chest and closed her eyes. I glanced down at the whole length of her beautiful body, now clothed again in her negligee, and I smiled ruefully at how she'd had to slip herself low down on the bed, her taloned feet hanging over the edge, so that she could lay her head on my chest. 

My arm across her back, I drew her closer. Her eyes flashed open and she sighed and nuzzled her face into the crook of my neck.

“I think I fell asleep,” she said.

“I'm about to fall asleep too, I think.”

She murmured. “I had a lovely dream.”

“What, already?”

She closed her eyes again and nodded. “I dreamed we were married. But that can't be, can it?”

“I don't know,” I replied, yawning. “But go back to your dream and I'll find you there.”

\-------------------------

The next day I was woken by a discrete knock on the door. I pulled on my pants and left Lanissa snoring lustily in the bed. 

It was a dragonewt official, one I thought I recognised from the wedding. He bowed low, his intricate headdress almost touching the ground. 

“I have come to escort you to the Assembly,” he said.

His hissing Common woke Lanissa up. With a shout she burst into the living area, still dressed in her negligee and swinging her sword.

The official stumbled backwards in alarm and I cried out that he was a friend. Lanissa stopped in her tracks and lowered her weapon. “Oh,” she said, blushing when she realised who it was. “I thought it was an assassin come to kill you.”

I helped the official back onto his feet. “The people are waiting for you, milady,” he said with remarkable poise as he rearranged his headdress and dusted himself off.

“We will be ready soon,” Lanissa said with a curtness I hadn't heard from her before. Well, she was the daughter of the Suzerain, after all. 

We quickly dressed and then we were escorted out of the suite as a number of dragonewts entered, clad in white uniforms.

“Cleaners?” I asked.

Lanissa blushed to the tips of her ears. “Priests. They're here for the sheets.” 

The earlier official reappeared with a squad of soldiers. It was time for us to leave. I clung to Lanissa's neck as she glided slowly back down the cliff face flanked by our honour guard. This time there was no horse-drawn carriage waiting for us, no nod to human tradition, and instead we continued flying to a great open amphitheatre carved out of the side of the mountain. A crowd was waiting for us there.

With my arms around Lanissa's neck I felt suddenly self-conscious, but she just laughed. She seemed to be taking everything in her stride, now. “It's just like the play, isn't it?” she said. “Everyone will be talking about this for years to come!”

For once the mention of the play didn't produce an icy regret in my stomach. Instead, I joined in her laughter. “I guess so.” I stared across at the crowd as a great roar of approval rose up to us and resounded against the great cliffs of Dragon's Tooth. “But I wonder if we'll be able to stop the war.”

Lanissa blinked at me. “Do you really think my people are going to go to war with the home nation of our newest mascot?” Her smile grew mocking, but her golden eyes were glittering with pride. 

A mascot? Well, there were worse fates, I decided.

Lanissa dipped the pinions of her wings and took us in to land. As we approached, I spotted my father beside the Suzerain, as well as a mix of human and dragonewt officials. A space had been prepared for us and Lanissa landed and gently set me on my feet. The applause rose and died away. 

The official landed nearby, and with him the band of priests. Lanissa drew closer to me, her face hot, as they stepped out before the assembly and unfolded the sheet much as you would a flag, exposing our mingled blood, blue and red, to the crowd. The roar that greeted it was deafening. My father looked on, his embarrassment well-masked, but the twist to his lips told me that he was proud of me.

The Suzerain, meanwhile, came up to me and slapped me resoundingly across the back. “You did well, son. Did I not tell you she would warm to you in time?”

“Uh,” I managed, biting back the agony coursing through my body. But Lanissa kept hold of me and with her help I stayed on my feet.

The Suzerain drew closer and lowered his voice. “Adding your own blood to the sheet was a brilliant idea. There is no way the Council can paint this anything other than an equal marriage – the truth of our two nation's joining is there in red and blue for all to see.” Then he laughed. “Though you will have to abide with some gentle jesting. I have already heard it said that Lanissa deflowered you as well!”

Oh gods. It really was that damn play all over again.

But with Lanissa beside me, my embarrassment was no match for the joy filling my chest. I gazed out across the green and red shimmer that was the dragonewt crowd. Was I really cut out to be the trophy husband of a princess, a living surety of peace between our two nations?

The crowd grew quiet. All eyes were on us, expectant. Lanissa looked at me, trying not to smile. She pursed her lips and tilted her head.

This time I didn't miss my cue.

The End


End file.
